To Forget What One Can’t Bear to Remember
by Miss Kass
Summary: The story of the days that pass as three broken team members work and drink and hide, attempting to forget the events that they cannot bear to remember.


**Spoilers:** For 2x13 "Exit Wounds". I still don't like to believe that it happened, but I guess there's not much I can do to make myself forget, except write.  
**Disclaimer:** Definitely not the owner of Torchwood, though it's run in pretty much the exact same way I would run it (EXCEPT FOR THE LAST EPISODE).  
**Notes:** Beta'd, so all mistakes from here on in are my own. Like Gwen, Ianto and Jack, I needed to do something to forget about the one episode that I find it so hard to think about. However, I intended for this to turn out to be something different to what it actually is.

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**That Day (The First).**

The three of them sat in silence for the rest of the day, waiting for the shock to finally settle, and for the news to actually sink in past the shells they'd built up around their hearts. Occasionally there would be the shuffling of someone going to the bathroom, or Ianto making tea (which would eventually end up covering the floor of the kitchen, his shaking hands unable to hold the cup of boiling water steady), but other than that there was nothing.

Somehow, though, just having each other's company was enough. By the time they all left the Hub (even Jack leaving his bunker untouched for the night, unable to sleep so close to where Toshiko Sato, coworker and best friend, had breathed her last breath) they thought that they could carry on; that they could take the legacy of Owen Harper and Toshiko Sato and do the work that they would never get to do.

**The Second Day.**

When Gwen Cooper entered the Hub, the insistent humming of machines was gone, silence permeating the building as though it too was in mourning. Even Myfanwy was quiet, the pterodactyl perched atop a railing near to the roof, clearly still asleep.

Gwen walked slowly, taking careful steps up the stairs and around the central pool until she reached the computers, where she found that she could walk no more. Even just seeing Toshiko's desk (the neatly stacked books and perfectly aligned pens gone, the monitor off and the keyboard pushed back until it had almost disappeared into the cables behind) was enough to make her remember everything they had been through, and so she cried.

She cried for those lost to the Rift, only found because Toshiko had discovered the negative Rift spikes. She cried for the dead soldier, Tommy, who had lived to love Toshiko, and been convinced only by the strength of that love for her to go and die to save the world. She cried for the alien, Mary, who had used Toshiko to get close to Torchwood, yes, but had also presented her with the strength to realise the wrongs of the human race, and to work to fix the future.

And as Gwen sat and cried, tears dripping onto the desk, Ianto and Jack arrived in the Hub, rushing to her and holding her, their presence the only comfort she would take. The rest of the day was lost in their sadness, their slight recoveries overnight lost to the pain of seeing the empty desks, and being unable to hear Tosh and Owen's voices chattering over the low hum of machines.

Gwen never went home that night, having fallen asleep on the couch in Jack's office, papers cushioning her body and being used as a makeshift blanket. Jack and Ianto never left either; still afraid of how hard it would hit them to sleep in the Hub so soon, but unable to summon the energy to wake Gwen from her (hopefully) dreamless sleep. Instead, they held each other, piling cushions from Jack's bunker bed on the floor of his office, where they could see Gwen and be at her side in an instant if she awoke.

**The Third Day.**

All three of them were woken by Myfanwy's screams, realising she hadn't been fed since the events that they each selfishly wished they could forget. So she was fed, and the three of them (together, always together, as though being with each other was their only salvation) began their work.

Avoiding the desks of her coworkers, echoes of their voices ever present in Gwen's mind, she gathered papers and brought them to Jack's office, where they would work in the company of one another. Few words were spoken, but that was okay because they had each other, and they had Ianto's tea, and they had new things to worry about.

They planned out their missions for the next day, the next week, the next month, all so they would have people to rescue and alien plans to destroy, and they had no chance for thoughts of Tosh and Owen.

And so they worked.

**The Second Week.**

Gwen hadn't seen Rhys in just over a week, but he understood. Or, at least he said he did. He was spending so much time with Andy that he barely called Gwen, telling her that she should take the time she needed, and that he would be there any time she wanted to talk. But she never did. She was hiding from him, knowing that if he hugged her tightly enough the tears would start again, and she was so afraid that they just wouldn't stop.

So she stayed away from her home, and her husband, and instead immersed herself in whatever work she could possibly do to forget.

Ianto was the same, though he wasn't hidden, only alone. When Lisa died, he had been able to summon the strength to go on, but even now, two weeks later, Tosh and Owen's deaths still haunted him. And so he wandered the Hub aimlessly until he was called for, feeling like his purpose was lost when two of his coworkers didn't walk into the Hub the morning after.

And Jack, who was trying so desperately to be strong for his team, had almost lost his will to fight. There had been things he had seen, and lived through, and even done that were worse than this, but having two of his team die in a single night, right after losing his brother to terror-filled memories, had hurt him deeper than he ever believed anything could.

But, because he was their leader, he put on his façade and played his game of life before their eyes, never showing the extent of the hurt Owen and Tosh's deaths had caused. As a true soldier and worldly man (more worldly than Gwen and Ianto could possibly imagine) he showed just enough of what they needed to see to understand how he was hurt by what had happened.

However, even though Jack tried so hard, and lived through his work and his coworkers alike, his heart was still crushed. And as such he was almost certain that his next death would be his final one; his heart had been broken too badly for it to reheal.

**The Third Month.**

With rings under their eyes, Gwen, Ianto and Jack finally realised that they had to stop. They'd worked and slept and occasionally drunk to forget the day before (afraid that Retcon would take too much of what they remembered, and so relying on a hangover to dissolve the previous day's events) and it was destroying their lives.

Gwen's marriage hadn't ended, oh no, but she had barely seen Rhys since the day Owen and Tosh had been ripped from their lives. Ianto had become a numb husk through the months; now doing little more than running through an endless loop of making coffee and driving cars and smiling his pretty smile to the tourists above the Hub. And Jack was still wearing his mask, and pretending he was fine, but his thoughts still tore him apart at night as he watched over Ianto and Gwen while they slept.

So, that day, they stopped their work (whether it be making coffee or chasing aliens or simply watching their lives go past), and they talked. And they remembered that while Tosh and Owen would definitely have wanted them to continue protecting the Earth, they would also have wanted them to have lives. They would have wanted them to have time to themselves, away from Torchwood, where they could go back to being people who didn't know about the alien threats.

Toshiko Sato and Owen Harper would have wanted the remaining members of Torchwood to be able to live the love that they never could.

So Gwen Cooper stopped hiding and went home to Rhys, crying her final tears into his chest as he hugged her, with Andy standing awkwardly in the background as he was so accustomed to. Ianto Jones fell into Jack's arms for the first time in months, remembering what it felt like to stop working, and to just exist… to just belong.

And Captain Jack Harkness, ever resilient, held Ianto and allowed himself to cry. He'd decided that there was only so long one could pretend that the hurt didn't exist, and it was his time to remember it all, then pack it away again and allow himself to forget.


End file.
